Changi Brownlow joins our sacred relics

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Lilian Chitty with her husband's Changi Brownlow yesterday. It was adapted from a medal a soldier had bought before capture.Picture:Pat Scala

A sporting trophy contested in war has become part of the fabric of the nation, writes Mark Forbes.

Like its namesake, the Changi Brownlow Medal nestles
neatly in the palm of the hand. But this small piece of silver evokes far
more history and heroism.

Just one was awarded. Peter Chitty valued it
far more than the British Empire Medal he received for carrying an ailing
prisoner 100 kilometres along the tortuous and deadly route of the
Thai-Burma railway.

Proudly, reluctantly, his widow Lilian yesterday
donated the Changi Brownlow Medal to the Australian War Memorial.

"I
hate giving it up, but I think I've done the right thing," Mrs Chitty
said. "It would be a bit selfish to have it sitting on my wall."

Mr
Chitty's chance of VFL greatness disappeared after a handful of games when
he volunteered after being recruited from the Upper Murray League by St
Kilda. His son, Roger, said he had no regrets. "I think he was happy to
serve his country."

Mr Chitty would not recount the horrors of his
imprisonment, but would happily talk about the remarkable football
competition that lifted the spirits of those held in Changi.

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"Football
was the one thing he would talk about," said Roger Chitty. "The footy at
Changi was as good and hard as any he had played."

The competition
culminated when he captained Victoria against the rest to a 25-point win
in January 1943.

Before a crowd of nearly 10,000, Mr Chitty was called
forward to receive the Brownlow. "It meant everything. There were a lot of
good players, league players, in there," Mrs Chitty said.

Like many of
the prisoners, Mr Chitty was captured after Singapore fell in 1942. They
persuaded the Japanese to let them stage a six-team football competition,
which ran for nine months.

Rubber trees served as goalposts. Wild pigs
were captured to provide bladders for the boot-leather
footballs.

Several top-flight footballers played and the 1933 Brownlow
medallist with Fitzroy, Will "Chicken" Smallhorn, umpired. In 1943 a new
Japanese commander banned the games and began working the prisoners seven
days a week. More than one in three died in the camp or during
construction of the infamous railway.

Ron Barassi, whose uncle was one
of Edward "Weary" Dunlop's first successful amputees in Changi, presided
over the medal handover yesterday. The medal, and prisoners' efforts to
stage the competition, typified the part of sport in Australians' lives,
and its capacity to overcome "colour, class and creed", he
said.

Australian War Memorial director Steve Gower said the medal would
be part of an exhibition on sport and war to tour Australia next year.

"The Changi Brownlow symbolises the tradition Australians have
established in turning to sport in wartime to maintain morale and
emphasise the importance of supporting those in your team," Mr Gower
said.

Mr Chitty returned to Melbourne after the war. He did not return
to football: like most prisoners, he suffered physically working on the
railway. He died in 1996, aged 84.